‘Outfoxed’ Exposes Calculated Bigotry of Rupert Murdoch’s U.S. Fox News Network
Outfoxed
Exposes Calculated Bigotry of Rupert Murdoch’s U.S. Fox News Network
by Henry Edward Hardy
Outfoxed (2004) is a film that takes on the “fair and balanced” pose of the US-based Fox news network. It is a fast-paced and well-focused expose of the blatant partisanship and meanspiritedness of the leading US “news” infotainment network. Outfoxed is a light snack. In 77 minutes it fulfills its mission to undermine the claims of objectivity and credibility for Fox’s programs and personalities.
What is missing from this video’s “radical lite” presentation is depth or context. One wouldn’t understand from viewing this video that Fox owner Rupert Murdoch is, in the words of the Wikipedia, “generally regarded as the single most politically influential media proprietor in the world.” Nor that this is the man the BBC once compared to Citizen Kane. But no matter.
Here are juicy tidbits of Walter Cronkite, characterizing Fox as a “far right-wing organization.” There is vicious, quivering, snarling righteous bigotry from Fox anchor personality Bill O’Reilly.
Ex-CIA employee and former Fox commentator Larry Johnson explains how, when he tried to give his honest opinion on air regarding the inability of the US to fight another full scale regional war while it is occupying Iraq and Afghanistan, Fox stopped using him for the remainder of his contract.
Other putative Fox tactics include character assassination, a program stacked 5-1 with Republican guests, distracting or misleading graphics, and intimidating the hapless guest by verbally attacking their families, their patriotism and at last shouting, “Shut up!” and cutting their mikes.
Outfoxed is a product of the Disinformation Company. Their website, http://www.disinfo.com, explained (09/2004) that the company was founded in 1995 by TCI (now part of Comcast, a premiere competitor of Murdoch’s Hughes Electronics DirectTV subsidiary).
The director of Outfoxed is Robert Greenwald. Greenwald’s earlier projects include the mediocre adaptation of the life of antiwar radical Abbie Hoffman, Steal this Movie, and the Farrah Fawcett film, The Burning Bed.
Greenwald’s TV and B-movie heritage shows in his direct and fast-paced, no-nonsense presentation. But in Outfoxed his crew has assembled great damning clips from Fox broadcasts and a host of disenchanted former Fox workers, along with enjoyable and penetrating comments by pundits such as David Brock, Walter Cronkite and Al Franken. Good infotainment, and good talking points for discussion with your left- or right-wing friends or co-workers.
Outfoxed is available through the website outfoxed.org
Wayback Machine for former disinfo.com website associated with this production at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://disinfo.com
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current, http://eCurrent.com/
Copyright © 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
The Blind Swordsman: Zatôichi
The Blind Swordsman:
Zatôichi
by Henry Edward Hardy
Zatôichi is a humble blind masseur who is also (of course) a master swordsman. He is no saint and enjoys the simple pleasures of gambling, sake and the company of women. But when bad guys want to do badness, watch out! He cuts them down in fine style.The film follows the familiar genre of a master swordsman who travels about in humble circumstances and has some extraordinary disability. In the excellent Lone Wolf and Cub manga and movies, it is a disgraced samurai with a young son he carries around on his back. The Hong-Kong One-Armed Swordsman films are naturally about a master swordsman with one arm.
The Zatôichi character was the subject of a popular TV show from 1974-1979. This latest Zatôichi film is approximately the 25th of that name. It is the first made by and starring Takeshi Kitano.Kitano’s swordsmanship is swift and decisive and his physical control excellent. There is no sword-clashing, flourishing back and forth here; when Ichi finally draws his cane sword he strikes like a cobra: decisive, ruthless and using the entire strength of his body behind the blade.
Only one opponent marks him; the tragic ronin character Hattori Genosuke (Tadanobu Asano). Genosuke is a noble samurai fallen on hard times who enlists as a “bodyguard” with the local yakuza gang in order to buy medicine for his consumptive wife O-shino (Yui Natsukawa).
Ichi falls in with two ruthless ‘geishas’. One of whom is really a man, who is the brother of the other geisha. They are seeking revenge against the yakuza clan, which destroyed their family. A great deal of camera time is devoted to the brother who is unambiguously devoted to living as a woman even when the bad guys have been eliminated.
Kitano used color to distinguish between the various factions, and to give the principal characters signature distinguishing features such as his yellow hair and red sword-cane. And there is blood. Geysers of blood. Fire-engine red bursts of rather badly done computer-graphic blood. If you don’t like to see vast effusions of obviously fake blood this might not be the movie for you.
But for fans of the period samurai film, or anyone looking for something offbeat and entertaining, Zatôichi is not the worst film one could see.
Zatoichi – A Takeshi Kitano Film http://www.zatoichi.co.uk/
Zatôichi (2003) (IMDB) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363226/
Zatoichi (wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zatoichi
The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi/Sonatine (2004) (Rotten Tomatoes) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blind_swordsman_zatoichi/
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current, http://eCurrent.com/
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
The Absurdity of War in Occupation: Dreamland
The Absurdity of War in
Occupation: Dreamland
by Henry Edward Hardy
The film Occupation: Dreamland (Greenhouse Pictures, 2005) tells the story of a squad of American soldiers from the US 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Fallujah, Iraq. Directors Ian Olds and the late Garrett Scott were “embedded” journalists with the 82nd Airborne in 2004. They have created a laconic, dark and incisive film giving their ground’s-eye view of Fallujah under the American occupation.”Dreamland” is the ironic name given by the soldiers to their rather dilapidated base at a former Ba’ath Party resort.
Occupation: Dreamland grips one with the terror and absurdity of the Iraq occupation. Who is the enemy? Who is a friend? Boredom and barracks humor frame instants of chaotic, harsh violence and everyday life. Two young Iraqis speak chillingly to the camera, saying, “The men of Fallujah are brave. Do not go to Fallujah. No Fallujah.” An Iraqi man in the street raises his arms to heaven and shouts that he is sick of guns. Frightened US soldiers in the middle of the night break down doors and force terrified families to kneel in front of them and warn menacingly (in English) that if anyone is up on the roof they will be shot.
This war in Iraq is not epic, as in the movie Gunner Palace. Olds and Scott present an occupation that is banal and good-natured and yet as menacing and disorienting as a J. G. Ballard novel. Some of the young soldiers observe that “something” had to be done after 9/11. Another soldier says, “Sometimes I’m thinking, ‘Man, if those were Iraqi soldiers coming and stomping on my door, I’d be running up there with a couple guns myself, you know.'” Another acidly observes, “I guess people could say that we’re stopping the stem of global terrorism, but the last time I checked, all the hijackers and a good number of people like Osama [bin Laden] were from Saudi Arabia.” (In fact 15 of the alleged 9/11 hijackers were Saudi, and four Egyptian).
The directors have a perspective that, by the selection of the material, one infers is critical of the occupation. But they have the wisdom to stand back and let the US soldiers and people of Iraq tell their own stories through their documented words and actions.
Occupation: Dreamland is available on DVD from http://www.occupationdreamland.com/dvd.html.
Occupation: Dreamland (IMDB)
Occupation: Dreamland (Rotten Tomatoes)
82nd Airborne
82nd Airborne Division (globalsecurity.org)
82nd Airborne Division (United States) (wikipedia)
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current.
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
The Perfect Beauty in Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
The Perfect Beauty in
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
by Henry Edward Hardy
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (Inosensu: Kokaku Kidotai, 2004) works both as a cyberpunk no-holds-barred shoot-’em-up and as a philosophical exploration of the nature of consciousness, memory, identity and what it means to be human in an artificial world. In a series of baffling crimes, an obscure series of android sex-dolls has developed a malfunction: they have started to kill their masters. When the military cyborg Batô responds to a crime in progress, he finds two murdered cops. A painfully beautiful geisha-doll android cradles the cop’s decapitated head in her arms like a baby. With perfect beauty and efficiency she tries to murder Batô as well. When he fells her with one punch of his android knuckles, she folds like a broken toy and begs him, “Help me”, then malfunctions and explodes in a most alarming fashion.
The film is visually stunning.The washed-out, grey, flat cell-animated anime characters contrast with the brilliant, super-real, anamorphically skewed candy-like cathedral light of the world portrayed through their cybernetically-enabled senses. The story is told through action and inaction, silence and violence. Much of the very laconic, cool dialogue is an obvious reference to film noir, as are the 1950s-era automobiles.
The geisha dolls are based on a series of pre-World War II dolls made by German surrealist Hans Bellmer, who made them partly as a protest against the Nazi ideals of physical culture, and partly out of an innate sense of sensuality and idealized beauty. As with Bellmer’s works, this ambiguity, that anything perfect cannot be anything human, is central to the film.
The protagonist, Major Motoko Kusanagi, is known at first in this movie only as a memory, a cipher. She disappeared years ago on a mission detailed in the Ghost in the Shell manga by Masamune Shirô and movie of the same name by Mamoru Oshii. Only her partner, Batô, continues to believe she is alive on the Net. We learn that what makes Major Kusanagi and Batô human, is that they love. Their sense of companionship, loyalty and identity with all life is what endows the shell of the body, whatever it may be, with a “ghost” or soul.
Google Image results for Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (IMDB)
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (Rotten Tomatoes)
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (wikipedia)
Hans Bellmer (wikipedia)
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2005, 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
American Splendor: Harvey Pekar and the Splendor that was Cleveland
American Splendor
Harvey Pekar and the Splendor that was Cleveland
by Henry Edward Hardy
American Splendor is the story of Harvey Pekar, a file clerk and down-market intellectual from the east side of Cleveland, Ohio. He is also the schlubby hero of his own comic, and the multifarious protagonist of his own movie. Directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, American Splendor (2003) is a sweet, funny film about a cynical, good-hearted loser and his idiosyncratic friends and family.
I had read that this film involved a combination of the real Harvey Pekar, dramatizations of the comic and still frames by various artists. I expected the movie to be incoherent, pretentious, arty and boring. Having lived in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in the ’60s and ’70s, I anticipated the depiction of Cleveland would be a phony, cheap satire.
Surprisingly, American Splendor is brilliant. The transitions between cartoon frames, the understated acting of Paul Giamatti, and the real Pekar, work wonderfully. The result is like a moving Kandinsky montage, a collision of disparate elements that nonetheless combine with the spaces between them to make a harmonious whole. The location shots are true to life and the gritty urban scenes made me downright homesick for Cleveland in the ’70s. And any movie that makes you homesick for Cleveland in the ’70s is a brilliant film.
Pekar worked as a hospital file clerk and as a music critic on the side. The music of American Splendor underlines Pekar’s love of jazz and his massive jazz record collection. Harvey Pekar is the loveable, acerbic, intellectual, grouchy yet well-meaning lower-white-collar guy that Woody Allen always wanted to be.
American Splendor is also a love story. It is a story about Pekar’s affair and somewhat functional marriage with his third wife, Joyce Brabner. American Splendor is about making a life among the urban decay of post-industrial Cleveland. The film celebrates all the people who don’t fit in, the misfits, artists and non-conformists. It is an uplifting story about a miserable, gloomy guy who has no life as we know it. Pekar is a modern Mark Twain or Ambrose Bierce, an apostle for the common man.
If your life sucks, if you are a nerd or quasi-autistic, if you have bad luck or no luck at all — or if you have a sense of humor that always carries you through, see American Splendor.
American Spendor (IMDB)
American Spendor (wikipedia)
American Spendor (Rotten Tomatoes)
A version of this article appeared previously in Current Magazine and on Electric Current
Copyright © 2006, 2007 Henry Edward Hardy
About Scanlyze
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Scanlyze is an online magazine of essays, commentary, satire, and analysis. Were we half as clever, for inspiration we would take Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Swift, Montaigne, or Seneca.
“The men who create power make an indispensable contribution to the Nation’s greatness, but the men who question power make a contribution just as indispensable, especially when that questioning is disinterested, for they determine whether we use power or power uses us.”
John F. Kennedy, October 26, 1963
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